Saturday, July 29, 2017

The Solar Eclipse Strip Map

There are some wonderful interactive maps about this year's solar eclipse that show you where & when you can view the eclipse and how much of an eclipse you might see. The Washington Post has now released an interactive map which allows you to explore the whole path of totality as the sun moves across the United States.

The Washington Post's Travel the Path of the Solar Eclipse is a strip map which allows you to explore the whole path of totality as it crosses the United States from West Coast to East Coast. The map starts at Yaquina Head, Oregon, the first place in the United States where the path of totality will appear at around 1.15 p.m. on Monday August 21st. You can follow the path of totality across the country, by scrolling down the page, until you arrive at Cape Island in South Carolina.

The map uses satellite imagery as the basemap, over which an opaque circular overlay shows you the location of the moon's shadow as the sun passes over the country. As you scroll down the page the map highlights interesting locations which fall within the eclipse's path. These points of interest include information, such as how long the eclipse will last and how much of the sun will be obscured at that location. You can quickly browse through these points of interest by using 'the next spot' and 'back' buttons. You can also use the small inset map to quickly jump to a location on the map.